My butternut squash bonanza continues! Think of this as a play on pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Except way better.

Honestly, I thought these up a year ago and never got around to making them. But they haunted me through spring and summer, and now that we’re back to peak butternut squash season, I had to make it happen.

So when last weekend’s Friendsgiving dinner got scheduled, it was a no-brainer. I knew exactly what I wanted to try.

That’s the beauty of Friendsgiving. My friends and I officially launched the make-whatever-you-want concept last year, after decades of being told by our families that, no, we could not make butternut squash soup as an appetizer instead of Bopop’s bowl full of grapefruit tradition, and no, we could not make a cornbread, sausage and peppers stuffing instead of the rustic bread, sausage, apple and onion standard. (more…)

A pumpkin recipe on a self-proclaimed pumpkin hater‘s site? Don’t be alarmed. It may look like I’m going back on my word, but I haven’t turned a new leaf and become a lover of all things pumpkin.

However, I have continued to try earnestly to find something (anything!) pumpkin that I might love, besides the seeds, which really don’t count. And after a bite of my friend Justin’s pumpkin curry order at Koh Samui quite a few months back and a recent re-order to confirm that it wasn’t just the cocktails before that first bite that made me enjoy the spicy dish, I can say with certainty that, for me, Thai pumpkin curry is to pumpkins what banana bread is to bananas: the savior of an otherwise icky, squishy texturally questionable food.

After trying to find festive but practical decorations for my Thanksgiving table, I settled on a large sugar pie pumpkin, two pears, two candles, and some fall leaves. After one pear was sacrificed in the name of pear chips and the other enjoyed as a snack, I was left with a massive amount of pumpkin. (more…)

December 3, 2010

Next time you’re carving up a pumpkin, whether for Thai pumpkin curry or Halloween, save those seeds! Although it might be tempting to toss them away along with the rest of the ooey gooey stringy pumpkin innards, they easily release from those strings and make for a quick, easy snack.

Whether you want a simple salted pumpkin seed or something more exotic like my cinnamon-chili powder flavor of choice, the key to crunchy, evenly salted pumpkin seeds is to boil them in salted water for ten minutes before you flavor them with spices and toss them into the oven to crisp up.

If you usually go with something strictly savory, I’d recommend trying this cinnamon-chili powder version for a change. The cinnamon and sugar give these seeds a warm sweetness, while the chili powder and salt add a touch of savory heat. (more…)